Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Jimmy Ashhurst Urges Stradlin to Take McKagan’s Offer

RockAAA.comWhen Duff McKagan suggested at Download that he would like to tour with old Guns N' Roses partner Izzy Stradlin at some point this year, he opened a can of worms. At the time he said, "it would be, it will be, really fun to go to South American and the UK with Loaded and Izzy to do a tour together. He and I have talked about it and it'd be great. At the end we'd do some songs together like 'Dust N' Bones' and 'Pretty Tied Up' or whatever. It would be really cool."

Tweeting later that it was probably just wishful thinking, McKagan cut the story down in an attempt to calm the clamour of voices which had started popping up on various forums excited about the prospect of another small piece of the great GN'R reunion jigsaw falling into place.

But former Ju Ju Hound’s bass player, Jimmy Ashhurst, now of Buckcherry, told RockAAA at Sonisphere Switzerland recently that the likelihood of seeing Stradlin’s re-emergence on to the touring circuit, even for a short run of shows, was very unlikely.

Still rankled at the way in which Stradlin left the Ju Ju Hounds high and dry during the recording of a second album in Trinidad, Ashhurst suggested that he would love nothing more than to be able to coax his friend out of the shadows.

Commenting on McKagan's claim that a tour with Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds was a possibility and his subsequent recanting of the statement Ashhurst said, "they are a confusing bunch of guys, right? If you listened to every rumour which came up in the last 25 years you’d go mental. I'm not sure what Duff's position on that is, or was, but from my perspective I find that (The Ju Ju Hounds) as having been a great experience and I find it hard to understand why you wouldn't want to do 5 or 10 cities in the world to make a lot of people happy. It's not that difficult and if you don’t want to do press, then, don't do press! He could pretty much make it under his own terms. So, for a guy like me who enjoys touring – I find it difficult to understand."

When asked if he had heard anything from Izzy on the potential of getting the Ju Ju hounds back together in light of McKagan's claims, Ashhurst was equivocal, "I haven’t heard from Izzy, which is to be expected – I barely heard from him when we were together! (laughs) He's a private guy. After touring as long as I have, I understand his position all these years ago clearly. But that’s our fundamental difference of opinion. Why wouldn't you want to go out there and make a lot of people happy? That's what this (music) is all about."

And Ashhurst remains very open to the idea of putting the Ju Ju Hounds back on the road, "I actually tried to get a message to him. I said 'If you do it, I'll pay my own way. It's not going to cost you a dime.' I'll reiterate that now. If he wanted to do it, it wouldn’t cost him. I certainly wouldn't take any money for doing it. It would be fantastic."